Rema Hammami
studied Political Science at the University of Cincinatti and Cultural Anthropology at the Temple University in Philadelphia. At the same university she earned her PhD in 1994 with the dissertation Between Heaven and Earth; Transformation in Religiosity and Labor among Peasant Refugee Women in South Coastal Palestine/Gaza Strip 1922-1992. Hammami is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Women's Studies of the Birziet University in Palestine. On Thursday 20 April 2006 she will accept her appointment to the Prince Claus Chair in Development and Equity 2005/2006 with her inaugural address Human Agency at the Frontiers of Global Inequality: An Ethnography of Hope in Extreme Places. Hammami has been nominated for the chair because of her impressive academic contribution as an intellectual protagonist for peace and co-existence in Palestine.
(ISS 2006)Archive available for: Rema Hammami
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Islam and disrupted childhood
With: Elif Shafak, Fouad Laroui, Margalith Kleijwegt, Pieter Hilhorst, Rema Hammami
This was the first programme in the series 'World Speakers' in Korzo Theatre in The Hague, organised by Winternachten and the Institute of Social Studies. The debate looked at traditions and Islam in the education of children in changing and hostile social environments. Participants were Elif Shafak, a writer from Istanbul and lecturer in gender studies in the USA, Rema Hammami from Palestine, lecturer in anthropology and women's studies, Dutch journalist Margalith Kleijwegt, writer of Onzichtbare ouders - de buurt van Mohammed B. (Invisible parents the neighbourhood of Mohammed B.) and writer Fouad Laroui, raised in Morocco, emigrated to Paris, now living in Amsterdam. Moderator was Pieter Hilhorst.
We compared three situations: immigrants in the jungle of Dutch cities, migrants from Turkish rural areas to Istanbul and other Turkish cities, and Palestinian youth in the 'war zone'. In these situations parents lose control of their children. They rely on school, neighbourhood and government to keep their children on the right track. But in these situations things get out of hand. The traditional Islamic organisations seem to provide a refuge: they give the children structure and a traditional religious education, in Turkey as well as in Palestine and the Netherlands. Rema Hammami's opinion is that the success of the Hamas in Palestine has to do with this kind of social support they offer.
The first part of the evening was a discussion with the four guests. The writers (Fouad Laroui, Elif Shafak, Margalith Kleijwegt) read from their literary work (in the original language, with simultaneous projection of the English translation). In the second part a panel of students from the ISS took part in de debate. The debate was in English.